The Memory Keeper

Chapter 13

He started to put an arm around her a little awkwardly, and must have decided not to, because he dropped his arm and then said softly, "I am sorry about your parents. That must have been hard. I..." He looked away. "I wish I was there for you when it happened."

She shook her head. "How could you have been? We did not know each other." Butterflies flitted across the road, and for a moment, she wished she were one of them. "It is still hard, and always will be." She fell silent for a while, and Peter let her be. Only the sound of their foot falls on the road could be heard. Turning her head, she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stop the tears. Every time she thought of her parents she felt this way, like she had woken from a nightmare to find it had really happened. And a world without them felt like it should be without her, too. She bit her bottom lip, which had started trembling. She did not want to cry in front of Peter. Not yet. They still hardly knew each other... But still, the cries came just the same.

Peter stopped walking and this time just threw his arms tightly around her. Natalie had not been embraced like this since the day her parents died. It felt for a blissful moment that she was one whole piece again, all the loose threads knotted back together. She was relieved to still feel intact even as he slowly released her.

With his knuckle on her chin, he gently tilted her face up. "You are a strong, beautiful woman. I am sure your parents are so proud of you."

She continued to cry, but smiled through them. Words could not express the wound Peter was fixing, the crevasse he filled better than anyone else could, whether he realized it or not.

Willow Haven's tall pointed roofs shone in the distance like sharpened pencils. By the time they made the curve on the main road around the first tall, narrow building, following a packed dirt one to further into Willow Haven, it was lunch time. The sun shone from the middle of the sky, and they shielded their eyes from its blast of light, their coats still flapping in the occasional icy breeze.

But the further they walked, the colder Natalie felt. The chill went straight to her bones. She wondered if Peter felt it, too. Weeping willows whispered from either side of the road. Or at least that is what Natalie told herself. Despite it being mid-day, there was fog casting almost a grayish hue over the entire town. When the mind weaver looked to her left, past a couple timber framed buildings, she saw crooked stones sticking out of the ground like crumpling old teeth. She did not think before squeezing the sleeve of Mr. Sheinfeld's coat, and he chuckled a little.

"I promise you will be okay. You have nothing to fear."

She could not tear her eyes from the tombstones. "What if they latch on to me, haunt me forever?" She thought of the ghostly spirit that already haunted her, and could not suppress the shiver. "I don't like ghosts."

"But are you afraid of them?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Then you have nothing, as I've said, to fear." He shook his arm a little out of her grasp. "Come on. Didn't I just call you brave earlier?"

"Strong, actually."

"Same thing."

She laughed at that. What was it about Peter that made her feel like she had known him for years?

Arched windows dotted the narrow buildings, which were so tall, they almost appeared to waver in the haze above, their pointed buildings just like the witch hats Natalie had imagined. There were not many people out, and the few that were ambled along like turtles. They wore long cloaks. And gas lamps flickered on the hard dirt path, piercing through the fog in patches here and there. A wooden sign squeaked on its hinges under a veranda into a shop. Natalie peered through the display windows. It was an antique shop, like she had hoped for. Just before she could reach for the rusty door knob, Peter made a sound of disapproval, and she looked back.